ThE BrOkEn BiNDiNg
by Hai Hai JaDe
Summary: -Meet Lesley Cecilia Lisbon, the sixth Lisbon girl born three years after the death of her sisters. Growing up to believe the weird things her parents do is normal, she is put under a spell of depression. But she then discovers something in the attic.. -
1. - Prologue -

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Title - The Broken Binding

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Rating - PG13 for language and reality

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Genre - Angst/Romance

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Summary - The sixth Lisbon girl was never claimed by the world of newspapers and magazine articles. Being just a baby born three years after the youngest and careless child, Cecilia, she grew up thinking she was an only child. Living now in Southern Massachusetts, meet Lesley Cecilia Lisbon: dreamer, soul giver, and one of the most curious and determined young woman of all the Lisbon sister's combined.

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Disclaimer - I do not own any of the Lisbon girls (Cecilia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary, Theresa) or Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon, but I do own Lesley Cecilia Lisbon and Eddie Marks (The boy next door).

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The Broken Binding

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- p r o l o g u e -

"Mother?" A young girl with ashen brown hair falling down her back looked up from her bowl of cereal.

An older woman, hair gray at the temples and tired from years of bleaches and dyes, turned from her busy work scrubbing at china plates. She was annoyed with this daughter. Her constant questions and wonderment about the world. Mrs. Lisbon couldn't remember the last time she had looked at her with love in her eyes. Lesley Cecilia Lisbon was just a replacement. And a weak one at that considering the fact she held not one trace of a reminder towards her other sisters. It had been sixteen years since the "accidental death" of her children. Seventeen since the death of Cecilia. And now Lesley was thirteen. The same age as Cecilia was then. The same age she had made her first attempt. And Mrs. Lisbon couldn't help but cancel her birthday party and pretend like she had never aged. She would keep Lesley locked in her twelve year old body forever. And God forbid she ever tell anyone it was her fourteenth. For that she would be sentenced to her room forever and ever. And she knew better than that.

"What now, Lesley? Can't you see I'm busy doing dishes?"

But Lesley just sighed inside, her heart collapsing against her chest and waiting to rise again with hope. But nothing cynical reminded her of happiness. Why couldn't her mother just have a baby? Someone Lesley could play with besides her ratty dolls? True her mother was very old and the kids at school always wondered why she never attended PTA meetings. Lesley just told them she was always working and folded the papers and flyers she got from teachers about open-houses and parent-teacher conferences, pushing them between the seat cushions on the bus.

The weirdest thing her mother did though was continuously wash the same dishes that she kept in the china cabinet and never took out. It was like she was a compulsive cleaner. One time Lesley had even caught her cleaning sets of dresses that she knew weren't hers. Not only because they were of awkward colors and patterns, but because she couldn't remember her mother ever making her a dress, let alone buying her one. They were all small and smelt of mothballs, and every time her mother finished cleaning them she brought them up into that spare room she kept locked with a skeleton key. All folded neatly. All freshly cleaned.

When Lesley had asked her father one night about her mother's strange doings, he just looked at her with a teary gaze and put the paper he was reading back in front of his face. Her father didn't speak much and usually kept to himself in the living room most of the time drinking ale and reading whatever there was to read. Mostly the Bible. He was a retired science professor and usually helped Lesley with her homework, but that was the extent of their odd father daughter relationship.

But all this oddness was a relief for Lesley. Because within this house of plagued weird happenings there was her own little world. A place she confined to called The Closet. Lesley was never a child born to disobey, so when her mother told her she didn't want her going outside, that meant she wasn't going to go outside. But that was just out of protection she thought.

The Closet was her special place where nobody could bother her. Not even the drone from the television or the clanging of the dryer and her mother's busywork. Instead she went to another place, dreaming of one day growing up and getting married and having children. Lesley wanted to be a writer. To put all her dreams and memories on paper, and to explain, to the unknown world out there, that there was still someone who hadn't discovered everything and had never actually tasted a burger with fries. Ice cream was an unbelievable dare to her stomach, but she could do without all of that as long as she had her book.

This one book meant more to her than anything in the world. She had found it up in the attic where there were piles and piles of boxes all taped saying Do Not Touch in bold red print. Of course, her being only eight years old at the time and only slightly mischievous, she didn't scope around too much. Only long enough to find a Virgin Mary statue with a blank black sketchbook and charcoals scattered next to it. After grabbing it she had reached to touch the ivory white statue but was startled when the naked bulb hanging by a weak chain snapped on. There it swayed in the middle of the dark attic, lighting up everything in it's vicinity. The piles of boxes, china plates, hanging vintage dresses, and some other things she couldn't quite see.

Lesley had burst into tears, practically breaking her neck as she climbed down the ladder to her safe space. The closet right beneath the stairs. Her mother and father hung their coats and dress jackets in there, but nothing more. She had discovered the secret door inside the closet that led to the attic while playing hide and seek with her dolls one day. Since then she hadn't dared to peek, only once to see if her shoe had mistakenly fallen at the bottom. But it was no use. The black shoe was definitely in the attic somewhere, probably lying next to that statue where she had stolen that book. When she was little she believed it was a sin that she had grabbed the book under Mary's watchful stone eye. But she had grown out of that, and after many days of searching for her shoe with no luck, her mother switched her and sent her to her room. Ever since, The Closet had been her domain, and the black book her Savior.


	2. - Flowers And Candy -

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- c h a p t e r o n e -

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Flowers And Candy

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"It's edible, don't worry about it." Lesley said, shoving her brown, chocolate stained fingers in the cat's eye.

She apologized and tenderly patted the soft white head. Faith was a present from her father for her birthday. Since Mrs. Lisbon had decided to cancel everything about the birthday, her father slipped her this one present. It was a fluffy white Persian like the ones she'd seen in the Fancy cat food commercials. She'd tried numerous times to put her soft food in one of her mother's china wine glasses and tap the fork on the side, but Faith never came so the food was wasted and Lesley was punished.

Now Lesley was trying a new technique. Force feed.

It was Valentine's Day and she had snuck into her mother's room to grab one of the luxury chocolates from the golden box her father had given to her. It had come with flowers and Lesley could have sworn for a minute her mother had smiled and guessed she would have probably been in a good mood. But after Lesley opened the box that contained the silver vintage locket with pearl entrustments from her father, the sheer joy was drained from Mrs. Lisbon's face. That had been Cecilia's locket. Mr. Lisbon had been in charge of giving Lesley something that "meant something" but Mrs. Lisbon had no idea it would contain such sentimental value.

Lesley wore it either way, it's shiny luster dripping with pride from her thin milky neck. And there it would stay, she swore, until the day she fell in love with someone. The day that this special person in return would give her flowers and candy so that she could jump up and down and plant kisses all over his face. This was her dream. One of the many she wrote down in her book.

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Now I could have said this a million times and never have been heard. It was like I was some sort of brick wall standing in her way of a disillusioned fantasy. I'd told her I loved her. That it was beyond a crush I was having over such a mindful spirit. Because I watched her from my own window next door. Watched her breath. Watched her play. And even made sure I never missed a moment in her life.

But I was just another boy waiting for a dream to come true. Someone who always wanted the things he couldn't have. And maybe that was why I always pursued Lesley Lisbon. She was different from the other girls at school. Keeping to herself most of the time and only staying for English and Reading before beginning her walk home. Those were the only classes she had. Other than that she studied at home all her arithmetic, social studies, and science especially. She even played the flute and went to camp in the summer to further her knowledge. She took voice lessons in town and was a genius when it came to anything science related. She was perfect. Her and her dark brown hair and blue eyes. Everything about her.

I'd sent paper airplanes through her window and even once dared myself to knock on her door and ask if she could come out and play, but that was all a bunch of silly dreams. Just like the ones Lesley wrote down in her book. Although to her they were as real as any other thing in her life.

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She wrote in quick scribbles. The marking across the page smudging into one big blob of ink for her eyes to feast upon with dry hunger. There was no more chocolate and Faith had squirmed her way out through the crack in the closet door. A small sliver of gold melted along the brown carpet beneath her from under the door. Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon were at a dinner party for one of their neighbors and were about to hire a baby-sitter until Lesley told them she could take care of herself. They hired a baby-sitter anyways and she was sitting in the living room, probably walking around touching things that weren't supposed to be touched and fingering picture frames and memorabilia.

She'd heard her mother walking back and forth along the hardwood hallway, searching for her, but she'd stayed inside The Closet with her black book held tight to her chest.

"Oh, she's probably up in her room reading. It's Saturday and she has to study arithmetic. It seems to prove difficult for her. All you have to do is knock and ask if she would like anything to eat around seven. The number to the house is on the fridge. Please don't go roaming and just stay within the living room, dining room, kitchen, and near Lesley's room. She'll come down when she's ready. She's a bit shy." Mrs. Lisbon said in her sweetest voice, grabbing her coat from the hanger.

"No problem, Mrs. Lisbon." The baby-sitter snapped her gum.

Lesley pictured her mother's disgusted face. She wasn't allowed to chew gum because of the incessant annoying sound it produced. But her father hurried her along and soon she heard the slamming of the door.

The smell of dust and mothballs was numb to Lesley's nose and the scratchy material of her father's dress jackets made her skin turn red. Still she scribbled away, her hand cramping at the knuckles but still moving.

She rested once only to escape to the kitchen and grab a glass of water. Standing there was the baby-sitter with her bleach blond hair in a high side ponytail and green stretch pants under stonewashed cut-offs. Her cold brown eyes were lined in black and thick with mascara.

"Whatever possessed my mother to hire a hooker?" Lesley said nonchalantly.

The girl stopped, mid-bubble and gazed at the child. Instead, Lesley brushed by her and to the fridge where the ice machine gave way into the shiny glass. She slid it under the faucet in the sink with ease, and waited for it to rush into her cup. The baby-sitter sat, annoyed at Lesley's comment. If she had half the guts her mother had, the girl thought, she would knock the little girl out. But she wouldn't get paid then.

"See you later, Kitty." Lesley called, even though she had plainly heard her mother say the baby-sitters name was Katie.

"I hate kids." Katie said, walking into the living room.

Once back in her dark chamber, Lesley shut the door behind her and sat on the floor. She placed the water next to her and bumped against the attic door. When she regained herself there was no fighting the fact that she had unhitched it's rusty clamp. It slowly opened, screaming through splintered wood and annoying screws and bolts. She sat wide-eyed, grasping her thighs and waiting for the darkness to invite her mind.

It had been five years since she looked inside that door. And as she sit, watching the light from that naked bulb upstairs flick on and off, she held her breath. Maybe she had grown. Maybe she was ready to see what was up there in that forbidden place.

She heard the chime of her water glass and watched the ripples take form from the tiny circles inside that escaped to the rim. She hadn't even touched it. It must have been a message from that statue up there. The one she had seen so long ago that had turned her into that crying little girl who had nightmares. But she wasn't scared of the monsters under the bed. She was scared of the ghosts she saw walking around in her room. The ones that wore white nightgowns and crowns of flowers. All five of them cheered happily, their crooked teeth their only flaw that she could find. They were all beautiful. Blond with perfect bodies and amazing shapes. Almost like angels. But one in particular was smaller than the others with shoulder length brown hair. Although she had the same blue eyes and crowded teeth, she seemed more reserved, jumping in their joyous circle after playing with her rosary beads and tracing the golden crucifix with her finger six times. Three times she did this and then dropped it on the floor which broke through and then they all sunk into some hole in the carpet that Lesley had tried looking for every morning she woke. Still at night they came. Still she had not slept without hearing one of them sob or giggle. And that music. The soft lulling of guitars and sweet voices that rang through her head and bombarded her thinking. Until all she thought about was clouds and elm trees. And virgins and religion.

And now these dreams were haunting her in the day. All because of that one time she tried to touch the statue that held secrets. And she'd be damned if she was going to give up the opportunity to go exploring up there in that dusty attic. She'd be rightly damned if she didn't discover her fate.


	3. - Damage -

- c h a p t e r t w o -

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Damage

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I noticed something odd about the house that night. Lesley wasn't in her room all night and I had seen Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon leave earlier. Some girl that looked like a prostitute had entered the house and I was almost a little worried. If I hadn't made a promise to sleep over a Billy Cage's house that night then I would have stayed up all night until her parents got home.

There was an eerie fog that seemed to engulf our block, seeping in through our open windows and smoking the insides of our houses. But I sat by my windowsill, writing over and over again the same letter I was determined to send to her. I had the beginning part down. Dear, Lesley. Well, that was it. Not too much of a start, huh?

The phone rang and Billy wondered where I was. I mean, it was past seven o'clock already and I should have been there, right? I packed immediately and hopped into my mother's station wagon that was my ride to the next town over. A whole town away from my Lesley. Anything could have happened.

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Lesley pushed aside a box that seemed to have moved since the last time she was up there. But then again the last time she was up there she was a foot shorter and a whole hell of a lot smaller. She looked back down at the bottom of the ladder where the small door, still open, revealed the small bit of light coming from outside The Closet. She took a deep breath and made a final lunge into the heat filled darkness.

She could swear she heard rats but then thought it was her imagination. Mrs. Lisbon would never allow a single rat to live within six blocks of the house. She brushed the dust from her pants that were only lit every few seconds from the flickering bulb. She gained enough courage to flick the light and it swung back and forth with anger, shining it's glow full force.

Lesley almost fell to her knees at the site. Piles and piles of boxes and crosses and stuffed animals. Baskets filled with porcelain dolls and even sheets and blankets that matched. She noticed the broken down bars of canopy beds and box springs piled against one wall, the pink insulation from the ceiling hanging down in one place, but the long nose of a carousel horse peering through the cotton candy philander. She swallowed the saliva gathering in her mouth.

The white Virgin Mary statue gleamed bright. Lesley had to literally take deep breaths to stop her heart from racing so fast. Never in her life had she been so scared as she was then. And to make matters worse, she noticed a pile of white nightgowns on top of a box, a golden crucifix their paperweight. Since now the ceiling would slam her head if she walked further she got down on her hands and knees and began to crawl. Opposite the statue.

When she reached the first box she sat Indian style in front of it, worried that someone might catch her up there and have her neck. She listened keenly for any sounds, but heard nothing and slowly let her clammy fingers grasp the hard tape. It was yellow with age and cracked when she touched it. A spider sped across the box and she pulled her hand back abruptly, smacking it on another box and then sucking on the pain in her fingers. She shook it out and then hurriedly yanked at the tape.

When she pulled the open box closer to her, the dust made her cough and gag. It smelled like attic and she could taste the age. But when she mustered the courage of sight, she was sent back into another world.

Records by the hundreds. Ones that she had never heard before. Some she recognized. But then she just figured they were her mother's. About to throw them aside and leave from fright and boredom, she went to close the box when the side split open. A few records fell on her lap and she scooted back as if they were diseased.

She picked one up and examined the cover. It was a rock record and she scrunched her face at the dusty title. She couldn't make out anything except the odd word **Lux** in bold black marker.

"Lux?" She questioned out loud.

The word echoed within the air, like a word spoken to awaken some sort of spirit. A chill tickled her spine and she threw the record in the box. She decided to try one more and if she didn't find anything exciting she would continue her life confining herself to The Closet.

This one was marked Cecilia and seemed packed to the brim. She ripped open the tape, but just as she split the top folds, the light started to flicker and then blew out completely. She couldn't see a thing. She turned, breathing quickly and saw the statue glowing amidst the dark. That was enough to make her scream and run in terror, but something was holding her in place. Something that made her insides squirm and her heart skip beats. It felt as if a cold breath was exhaling onto her neck. The pit of her stomach churned and sweat poured in glassy beads down the side of her face.

She heard the giggling again and tried to stand but failed, falling back against the box and starting to cry.

"Leave me alone. Please, stop." She pleaded in a half whisper, wondering why all the terror ceased to escape in her mind.

The possibilities of death flashed like a movie before her and she waited to feel that unbearable pain she had waited for all her life without really knowing why. But this was worse than when she broke her arm falling down the stairs when she was young. And it was far worse than when she caught pneumonia and her lungs felt like they were about to break. This fierce and unconceivable pain grew hard along her spine and splintered like ice through her body, the center of it all throbbing inside her stomach. She felt as though she would pop if she moved, her back arched against the box, belly up towards the sky where she prayed for life and blessed herself over and over again. The pain cracking at her back like a whip. She felt cold along her stomach, barely able to move her arms without crying out more.

How come nobody could hear her? How come she couldn't just die and get the pain over with? She was done trying to twist in a position where the cramp would go away. And just as she shut her eyes, dreaming of cloud shapes and laughing suns, the terror turned her inside out. She rolled heavily off the box and onto the floor, demanding to know whether the anger or sadness was greater inside her weak body. When she opened her eyes she could see within the dark. As if God had given her vision in dark places. The light was shattered against the cold ground and she parted her lips to cry one final time. But she stopped, watching the spilling of books, feathers, magazine clippings, and small religious statuettes fall to the floor beside her.

The tears were drying on her face fast and she pretended not to move. Maybe if she just stopped everything, they would leave her alone. They who? Why did she have the feeling someone had done this to her? Not out of hurt or anger, but happiness and vigil. To prove there was better things in life than hurt and pain. So she stopped, leading her left hand along a zigzag path towards the nearest book. It burned her hand as she touched it's broken binding. As she dragged it nearer she felt a sudden power immerse within her. All the pain draining from her body as if it had forgotten about mutilation.

She gathered her body near the box, her spine limp and causing her to slouch tremendously as she tried sitting on her knees. But she was successful and pawed at the book in her left hand until it was before her.

It was beautiful, covered in immaculate designs hand drawn with scribbles all over it's cover. She dared to open it, worried the binding might completely fall off. But when her tender blue eyes still wet with tears followed the written words along the first page, a fire inside her burned so bright they melted away. And there before her was a new life, filled in the pages of one simple book. All the answers she had ever wanted to know where lying here in this dingy attic all along.

Leslie pressed the pages, smelling the sweetness of old perfumes and sunny days. The blades of grass and pressed flowers between the pages. Stickers and colored lip prints all along them. And in the middle amazing poetry that sent innocent goose bumps along her arms and legs.

This attic. That room. These stories held in each one of these books kept by these five ghosts. This was all her life. It was going to be a long hard road to get where she wanted to go, she realized. Fall in love, have children, be an amazing writer. What was she really looking forward too? It was going to be so hard, she thought.

And besides, Cecilia had other plans for her.


	4. - A Remembrance -

- c h a p t e r t h r e e -

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A Remembrance

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She'd left out the parts about crying. The ones where her insides turned to mush at the fact that the only love she had was for her book, not even for herself. This girl was what made young teenagers whole again. Her thoughts and dreams shared along lined paper are what made Lesley breath freely at last. So where had she gone? This happy and wondrous person who believed life's pleasures were those hidden in Elm trees and behind marshmallow clouds. Could she have moved to another state? Living with a relative?

Lesley thought maybe she was a cousin. This Cecilia girl who seemed to train her into becoming a young woman. But she couldn't find a last name. Just the first one that oddly enough matched her own middle name. And what a weird name, Lesley had thought when she first heard it.

But now it sang to her through poems and wonderful smelling perfumes you couldn't find at the Lisbon house. Inside her heart was warming. She closed her eyes and could smell the breezes that would have freshly lifted Cecilia's hair. How Lesley envied everything about this girl. She pictured her as the prettiest of her sister's she often mentioned she had. Yet their names were never written.

It had been three days since Lesley had escaped to the attic and every day she went up to find new things, careful to open everything with ease. Throughout her searches she was smiling, but dared not to go close to the side where the statue lay gazing at her. She kept her collection in The Closet, and after a while started piling up records under her bed. But still she only found religious statues, records, and dolls. She was waiting to find something truly worth her hours of interest.

Mrs. Lisbon never wondered where Lesley was because she would often come to the kitchen for some seltzer water and was always in hearing distance when dinner was called. Lesley talked about reading and school more happily and was even thinking about joining the science fair.

Of course Mr. Lisbon was delighted to hear the news and was set on starting right away. But Mrs. Lisbon bit her lip and let her fork drop hard onto the plate.

"Why would you bother with something like that?" She snapped.

Lesley's smile dropped and she looked over at her mother with big blue eyes. Mrs. Lisbon noticed the happiness in her daughter's voice and was starting to get suspicious.

"Because it's fun, Mommy." Lesley said.

Everyone was taken back by the remark. Lesley had never called Mrs. Lisbon, Mommy. She stared wide-eyed, remembering the laughing voices of her daughters as they called out her name.

"Mommy! Come see what we found!"

"Mommy, look at my picture!"

"Mommy, call the police! It's Cecilia!"

The dark memories slammed at her brain and she stood, practically knocking the table over. Lesley crouched in defeat. She knew where she had gotten the speech from. She had been deliberately ordered since birth to call Mrs. Lisbon, Mother. Mommy was what Cecilia had referred to her mother as, in the book.

"Don't you ever call me that again." Her voice cracked, but her eyes were cold and direct.

Lesley looked over to her father who was too busy nervously forking around the mashed potatoes on his plate. She looked down at her own plate and suddenly lost her appetite.

Mrs. Lisbon stormed from the table and upstairs where she would probably read a book to get her mind off things, Lesley thought. She looked at her father, wondering if he would have a similar reaction. But instead he smiled.

"How about that project of yours?" He asked.

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Billy didn't believe me that Lesley Lisbon was my next door neighbor. I told him plenty of times but he was still under the assumption that she lived in some cave in the woods, raised by a pack of mangy wolves. He laughed after saying this and I looked away.

"Aw, c'mon. The girl even _looks_ like a damn wolf. She has, like, these yellow eyes." He traced his own eyes to show enthusiasm.

"So what. Their called Hazel." I replied, leaning up against the bed post.

"And grimy brown hair!" He said.

"It's dirty blond!" I protested.

Billy snorted and started going through his Nintendo games. He was just jealous that she was in love with me and not him. He was fourteen, a whole year older than me, and he still hadn't gotten one girl to even look at him. He was a bit chubby, with a red nose and crystal blue eyes. He had spiky red hair that was always a mess, but still combed, with freckles all over his face. I wanted to tell him if Lesley looked like a wolf, than he looked like a damned fire ant. But I bit my tongue and dropped the subject, grabbing the controller and taking my anger out in the character I portrayed on the screen.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to be someone else for once? To be able to get inside someone else's mind and be them? I knew I wouldn't mind. Just as long as I didn't have to switch bodies with Billy, then I would be fine.

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Lesley had stayed up late the night before working on her science project. Well, actually, just talking about the science project. Her father made her map out the entire thing on blueprint paper and then write a list of the things she would need from the store. He had even agreed to let her go with him. Like a father-daughter type thing. She was so excited she could hardly contain the urge to give him a hug, so she just did. And for once in her life she saw him smile warmly at her.

She flipped through the pages of Cecilia's book, practically memorizing the poems and knowing where everything was. Suddenly, something fell to her feet. It was a small pink envelope, one that could probably only fit a small memento card. And that was exactly what was inside. It was a list. The Top Ten Most Important Things I Must Do Before I Die.

They read as follows: 1. Switch Lux's shampoo bottle with peroxide. 2. Read the entire Bible. 3. Use Mary's make-up and hide her hairdryer. 4. Drink alcohol. 5. Smoke a cigarette. 6. Have sex. 7. Get Bonnie to teach me how to play the flute. 8. Fit into one of Therese's brassieres. 9. Graduate. 10. Fly.

Lesley was confused. She recognized the name Lux from that old record and it was on many of the other records upstairs. Mary, Bonnie, Lux, and Therese, must have been her sisters, she thought. And those were perfectly normal wishes to get back at her sister's for childhood things. But drink alcohol? She could do that when she eighteen, she wouldn't die before she was eighteen. Smoke a cigarette? She could do that whenever she wanted. Kids all over had those on there hands. Having sex was a bit of a weird one. Lesley had never even thought about that before. She still wondered where everything went on her own body let alone how to have sex. And graduate? Of course some people didn't do that well in school, but Lesley could tell that Cecilia was smart seeing to the fact that she wrote amazing poems and had the most proper English. Why wouldn't she graduate?

But the weirdest thing of all was the last wish. Of course everyone dreamed of flying, but even Lesley knew, at thirteen, that it was a little girl thought to think you could fly. Or to even dream it for that matter. Lesley had unusual thoughts and aspirations, but flying was definitely not on the list.

This made Lesley wonder if there were things upstairs that belonged to Mary, Bonnie, and Therese. She knew there was the records for Lux, but nothing else really had significant possession or claim by the others. She had never found anything but a few different books with different handwriting that she had just thought were a few school notebooks. She wasn't quite interested in those.

Five sisters. Now Lesley was curious. She knew her mother could hide one persons things. Cecilia's. But how was she keeping all of the other girls things up in that attic? And why?

Lesley closed the book and reached for the brass latch on the attic door. Maybe she did it for a reason, but Lesley took three deep breaths before going up this time. Because she was going to search the other side of the attic. The darker side where the statue lay. She wouldn't have a hard time ever remembering this moment.


End file.
